by Peter Damon
“OK Mickey,” she murmured, using her gun to move aside.
Mickey pulled on the rope and the satellite floated towards where he stood, in the back of the SUV. As it approached, he reached for it and guided it smoothly onto the plinth that they had prepared for its transport home.
“We good?” the watchers on the ARC heard Mickey say as Maddy floated towards the cab.
“We are,” she agreed, and curved herself smoothly back into the open door to regain her seat within the cab.
“How many women are working outside?” Michael asked Frankie, his voice a whisper.
Frankie shrugged and turned his dark eyes towards Michael. “All of them have been outside for over half an hour,” he pointed out. But then, everyone on board had been obliged to spend a half hour out in space.
“How many are working outside, Frankie?” Michael asked again.
“Five,” Frankie told him. “Is that a problem to you?” he asked.
Michael shook his head, his eyes on the monitor and the magnificent view as the SUV turned to move towards the earth. “Not me,” he admitted. “And it’s clear from the way that she used that airgun that she’s capable. But it’s best to know these touchy things, in case it upsets others,” he explained. “20% of the earth still thinks women should be regularly beaten and kept indoors, denied even basic education. It’s the same 20% that cause most of the acts of terrorism too, as it goes. Undermining their belief in the weaker sex often earns you more than you would have anticipated. I’ll let Oliver know. He can deal with it before it becomes an issue.”
There was a beep from the Frankie’s tablet on the table and he glanced towards it.
“That’s us,” he told Jerry, rising and stretching. “You’ll have to excuse us. We’ve got a job to do for Oliver,” he explained.
Jerry smiled and followed the slender form of Frank towards the door.
+++++++++++++
Oliver coordinated the movement of the two SUVs with the help of Allan on the main board in the control-room. In the end, the best video was of the SUV floating above the bulk of the USA at mid-day, the picture clearly showing the small satellite perched on its plinth in the back, sunlight glinting off the small metallic orb.
The two SUVs parted in order to enter the atmosphere, and rejoined at 2,000 metres so that video could record the movement of the SUV with the satellite standing on its flat back as it dropped below a cumulus cloud. It was then asked to wait so the first SUV could land. Once parked, it then captured the SUV with the satellite as it made a soundless descent onto the asphalt at the Kennedy Space Centre.
The cameras continued to record as NASA engineers hurried out from the nearby hanger to collect the precious cargo, waiting impatiently as Mickey and Maddy had them stand to one side as they orchestrated the unfastening of the little Vanguard 1 satellite, and its handing down into their eager hands.
Their task complete, Mickey and Maddy climbed back into their SUV and rose smoothly into the sky, followed by Frankie’s SUV, their job similarly completed.
August 15th.
The return of the Vanguard 1, the oldest satellite to have survived in space, to the Kennedy Space Centre, on Cape Canaveral, Florida was being covered by CNN, and was shown in the main auditorium of the ARC. Michael hadn’t intended to watch; he still had a report to write for Cambridge University, and the loss of the reverend had doubled Michael’s own workload. However, on the urging of Oliver, whose grin inferred there might be something worth watching, Michael had relented and pulled Heather along with him to sit in the back row of the large and dark auditorium.
NASA management, the United States Marine Band, dignitaries from the armed forces, Capitol Hill and the space industries that had helped put it there, were all present, or so it seemed to those on the ARC as they waited for the host, Vanguard 1, to make its appearance.
Tiered seating had been constructed in the shade of one of the large hangers and an empty plinth of chrome had been placed in front of them, while the voice of the CNN presenter gave his audience a detailed history of the Vanguard I, the first American satellite to be successfully launched into orbit.
Michael sighed as the many dignitaries, the American President included, were indentified for the watching audience. It was a roll call of Americans, without sight or mention of the group who had enabled the satellite’s return.
Good old America, eh?” Michael said quietly.
“Quite. But just hold on a moment longer,” Oliver murmured expectantly.
The image changed, and the CNN reporter provided a voice-over for the image of an ARC SUV floating in space over the earth, the Vanguard 1 satellite perched on a plinth on its flat back.
A grin broke Michael’s features as the rest of the audience in the auditorium screamed their appreciation. As CNN continued to explain how the satellite had been returned, they showed the video of Mickey and Maddy getting out of their oversized SUV to order the NASA engineers from the side of the vehicle so they alone could climb onto the back and delicately lower the prize to them.
The television cameras returned to the present to show a guard of honour stepping from the nearby hanger, six hands holding a table-top on which the satellite stood. They moved with solemn ceremony to a plinth of gleaming chrome where, in a dignified silence, it received the salute from the combined force of the Unite States of America.
The President of the United States stepped up to the rostrum to make her speech, and CNN cut away from her to show the image of the SUV in space, hovering over the North American continent while the President praised the ingenuity of the American people for creating such an object.
Michael shared in the auditorium’s laughter and, rising to get on with his other tasks, clapped Oliver on the shoulder.
August 16th.
“Hello Michael,” Stan said, the video feed appearing on Michael’s main monitor in their suite.
“Hi Stanley. What you got?” Michael asked, gladly putting aside work on the accounts.
“The reverend spent 6 years teaching at a reform school in the early seventies,” Stan told him. “Some of those boys were sent to the USA and Canada, and one of the lads, now working for a manufacturing company in Virginia, has recently had a lot of dialogue with the FBI. The same boy complained of abuse while he was still in the reform school, but his allegations were dismissed by the British authorities at the time. We believe the more recent dialogue may have been another attempt to substantiate his past.”
“I see,” Michael murmured. “So nothing’s been proven?”
“Michael, I appreciate you’ve known the reverend for a long while, but we’ve got to arrest him. Whether there’s enough evidence to prosecute on a child abuse charge or not is beside the point. Whatever the ex-pupil of the reform school told the US authorities, it was enough to persuade the reverend to carry out acts of sabotage.
“Now, it could be the reverend was pre-disposed to cooperate anyway, say out of some misguided religious conviction. Or that he didn’t want these allegations coming to the fore purely on the basis that shit sticks. The point is, he’s your saboteur and, as such, needs to be off that ship and safely in custody.”
“Yes, I hear you,” Michael agreed. “We’d best come down to bring a couple of police officers up here to arrest him. I don’t think we have any handcuffs up here.”
“Lock him in his room until we get there. I’m serious Michael,” Stan told him.
Heather, listening to the exchange, tapped her tablet awake and changed the settings on the reverend’s suite door, and the chapel.
+++++++++++++
Oliver tapped on the door to the reverend’s suite and opened the door to look within.
“Don’t stand on ceremony, Oliver. Just come on in,” Martin Giles told him. The reverend was seated at the table where he was busy tapping away on an old laptop.
“It’s good of you to see me,” Oliver told him. “You know you don’t have to say anything?” he explained.
“I know. Michael and Heather have both explained that I haven’t yet been formally charged, but there’s no point in my remaining silent. It’s a weight off my conscience actually,” the reverend explained, closing the laptop.
“So, what is it you wanted to know?” he asked.
Oliver pressed the app on his tablet to ensure the interview would be recorded, and set it down on the table. “When did it start?” he asked.
“A few days after the launch,” Martin admitted, and hung his head for a few moments in reflection. “A man called Ian Gowen contacted me via email; asked if I was aware of the forthcoming scandal. He had names and dates, details he could only have got from the boys involved. Do I have to go into details?”
“Only if you want to, or feel it relevant,” Oliver suggested.
Martin shook his head. “God tested me, and I failed Him,” he murmured.
“And did this Ian Gowen say who he was acting for?” Oliver asked.
“His email address was cia.gov,” Martin told him.
“You still have these emails?” Oliver hoped.
Martin shook his head. “They would disappear after a few minutes, read or unread, saved to another folder or responded to, they just never stayed in my Outlook. I cut and pasted some to Word though. I have those.”
Oliver sighed. The Word documents would show the reverend as the author. “And they suggested some small acts of sabotage might stay their hand?”
“Yes, and they were relatively minor things. The substance in the air system got a little out of hand. I really didn’t anticipate it leading to a whole evacuation procedure beginning,” Martin admitted. “I would never have done anything that risked people’s lives, you have to believe that.”
“How did you get the explosives?” Oliver asked, nodding his head.
“A Korean ground worker passed them to me while we were down there returning the installation staff and getting additional maintenance people. I had never seen him before,” Martin admitted.
+++++++++++++
“We have the reverend’s laptop, tablet and phone, so I will pass them to our forensic scientists to see what we can recover, but my bet would be that we find nothing. With his story totally uncorroborated, the courts will take the view that he acted on his own,” Stanley explained over the video link to Michael, later that day.
“Can’t we use the details you uncovered to show that USA had information that gave them opportunity to blackmail Reverend Giles?” Michael asked.
Stanley winced. “We could have, if we could corroborate any of it. Unfortunately, those details appear to have changed overnight. The man in Virginia is telling us he never made a complaint to the FBI, that he was never abused as a child, and that he knows nothing at all. The original abuse claim he made at the time was a complete fabrication which he bitterly regrets. Boyhood rancour at being dismissed from the football team, he tells us.”
“And there are no case-notes within the FBI,” Michael guessed. “What about this Ian Gowen? How else would the reverend know he was CIA, unless there had been some dialogue?” Michael asked.
Stan smiled. “There is no, nor has there ever been, a man called Ian Gower employed by the CIA,” he explained.
“In summary; we are still alive, one day older, and a lot more aware of our enemy’s capabilities.” Stanley summarised.
+++++++++++++
Frankie felt the frustration of the last few days ebb from his shoulder as the SUV slid from the rear doors and turned eastward to follow the earth’s slow rotation. Touching his console, he selected the app he had prepared earlier and saw the ARC swiftly diminish as he headed outward, towards GEO.
Maddy poured the tea from a flask and pulled out the latest facility that had been added to the oversized SUVs, a cup holder, formerly from an Audi A4, vintage 2015. Frankie meanwhile dialled the number he’d been given and listened to it ring a couple of times before it was answered.
“Hello, this is Robert, how can I help you?” asked a voice with a southern American drawl.
“Hello, this is Frank Hill on the ARC requesting confirmation of target,” Frankie told the man.
“Yes Sir!” Robert answered crisply. “Let me just bring you up on our screen Sir,” he murmured.
Frankie sipped the tea while watching the earth recede behind him. Maddy was using the SUV’s own radar to view the area around the vehicle, pulling a long face as it remained clear of anything larger than a golf ball.
“We have you Sir, climbing towards GEO,” Robert confirmed.
“Frank or Frankie,” Frank told the man at the radar installation in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts.
“Yes Sir. Your target is 5 degrees ascending with a 2 degree inclination, 3,240 kilometres distant,” Robert told him.
Maddy checked his numbers against those the ARC had prepared for them and nodded. They had the right object on their system and were heading towards where it would be, once the SUV had travelled the odd 3,240 kilometres to get there.
“Thank you Robert,” Frankie told him.
“Well, you need anything at all, you just phone me,” Robert drawled. “Have a good day now,” and he signed off.
Maddy laughed, shook her head and sipped her tea, her eyes monitoring her screen for changes.
How much do you think it’s worth?” she asked Frank as the spent rocket booster appeared on her radar image, the SUV moving swiftly towards it.
“Won’t know until I see it. Even then, not sure I’ll know, not until I actually sell it,” he admitted. This was new ground and he hoped it would be a long time before such exotic items as spent rocket boosters were only good for scrap. Until that time, he hoped each one would bring in a few thousand Euros, perhaps as much as a few hundred thousand Euros.
“Showing on visual,” Maddy told him.
Frank tapped a screen awake and looked at the item they had come all this way to find. There were at least 800 such items up here in geosynchronous orbit. Having boosted their satellite payload to its correct position, they then become spent objects, circling the earth, a useless piece of junk that the launchers couldn’t afford to dispose of.
He and Maddy concentrated on the object as they moved slowly nearer, the SUV matching velocities with it and inching towards thirty metres of it.
“It’s smaller than I thought it would be,” Maddy murmured.
Frank shrugged, though he too was mildly disappointed. His estimation of the price they would get for it diminished, Maddy and he having agreed on an equal split of the net revenue.
“You sending this back to Tess?” he asked, referring to the video image on their monitors.
Maddy nodded. Tess Welsh had offered to work in the office and, just as she would have done on earth, was using pictures and descriptions to offer it up for sale, probing selling opportunities and searching out the right markets and the right people in order to get the best price possible for them. And just as she had when on earth, Frankie would give her a small and steady income, together with a bonus for each sale she made.
“Ok, let’s do this,” Frank said, and reached for his faceplate, drawing it on while Maddy did the same with hers, then waiting for the head-up display to confirm he was green before he turned on the half dozen cameras around the outside of the SUV so he would have a complete view. He then took the steering wheel and began to cautiously move in.
Frank turned the SUV to present its skids to the booster and moved slowly towards it. The touch of metal on metal could be felt through his hands and feet, while screen images showed him slowly pushing the booster flat up against the SUV’s underside.
“Ok,” he agreed as Maddy looked towards him questioningly.
She voided the vehicle of air and stepped out, a graceful move taking her onto the back of the truck so she could extract the cable straps from the equipment box. She fixed one end to the side of the skids and then wrapped the cable strap about the booster, securing it to their underside of the vehicle.
She was back in the cabin
inside ten minutes and tapping the screen in front of her for the return of air before she broke the seal on her mask to smile towards Frank. “Piece of piss,” she told him.
“Good.” Frank pressed the return app and settled back to watch the earth grow slowly larger on his monitors. The remains of his tea had boiled away when the air had been exhausted, but thankfully Maddy had some more in her flask and they drank to their success.
Arriving at the ARC, they once again donned their masks so that Maddy could remove the cable straps from around the booster, and Frank manoeuvred it to a position below the large ship where it would stay until sold, a RFID chip identifying it to everyone.
Back in the dock, the outer doors closed and the atmosphere replaced, two dozen of their colleagues wandered out to congratulate them.
“Ok,” Frankie told them, getting their attention away from Maddy’s shape revealing suit. “You’ve seen us do it. ‘Piece of Piss’ were Maddy’s words. We’ve got enough vehicles and trained people to make six teams. I say we concentrate on the booster rockets sitting up at GEO. There’s over 800 sitting up there,” he told them. “And they’re dead easy to see and catch.”
“What do you think they’re worth, Frankie?” Paddy Miller asked.
“The one Frankie has recovered has just been sold for five million US Dollars to the company who own the satellite that it put up here,” Tess called, walking in to join them with a grin that could have broken her face in two.
“Five million dollars!” more than one of them repeated, their eyes alight as they considered such monumental profits.
“Yes, but 50%t of that is given to the ARC for looking after us, and a further 25% is put into our own fund for buying us our own place,” Frankie cautioned them.
“50% Frankie. That’s an awful lot of money,” Paddy told him, looking about him for nods from the others. “The Toffs down on earth don’t even have to pay that much in tax!”
“It’s what was agreed right from the start, and you all know it,” Frank told them, unwilling to be drawn into any arguments. “You don’t get anything for nothing, and you all know that too, I’m sure.”